Brax (2 page)

I reached out and slid my hand to the nape of her neck,
letting my thumb trail along her bottom lip. She parted them for me; her
eyelids grew heavy and her breath caught. No matter what else went on in her
mind, some switch turned on inside of her. I think her memory flashed like mine
did. I’d given her something that night and she hadn’t forgotten it. Neither
had I.

I leaned down and tasted her. She was bolder than me, darting
her quick little tongue along my lower lip. I think it startled her how fast she
responded to me. The pulse in her neck beat even faster. God, I wanted to slide
my hands beneath her thin blouse and feel her swelling breast beneath my palm.
Roll her pert little nipple under my thumb and see how hard I could make it.

I kept one hand on the desk though. I didn’t know what this
was for sure. As far as I knew, this was all some game she played. That suited
me fine, but I’d make the rules, not her.

Nicole’s purse dropped to the floor as she brought her hands
up and threaded them through my hair. Fuck. She’d done that under the bleachers
too. Right before she turned and lifted that cheerleader skirt and I got to see
how ready she really was for me.

She brought a hand up, running it along my thigh; her fingers
played at the bulge between my legs. I was hot and hard and I wasn’t playing.
It was time to see whether she was. Returning the favor, I slid my hand beneath
her tight black pencil skirt. Her thighs quivered as she parted them for me,
almost on instinct.

“Brax.” She gasped my name, bringing back a flood of
remembered sensations. She’d been so tight and wet. Her mouth had been eager as
she wrapped it around the length of me. My fingers reached the thin patch of
cotton at the vee of her legs. She was soaked through.

Fuck.

I slid a finger beneath the fabric and found her slick heat.
She shuddered and opened for me. When I circled the pad of my thumb around that
taut little button of flesh, Nicole arched her back in the chair, pulled away
at first, then sank her head on my shoulder, struggling to get control of
herself.

When she looked back up at me, her eyes flashed. Tiny beads of
sweat formed above her brow and every inch of her creamy white skin had flushed
pink for me. I knew what it took for her to do what she did next. I held the
proof of her burning need beneath my thumb.

But Nicole closed her legs and pulled her skirt back into
place. I slid my hand away from her and straightened my own shirt, keeping my
hands steady.

“You haven’t agreed to help me yet,” she said, her voice
ragged.

I ran a hand through my hair and looked toward the ceiling.
Baseball. Business expenses. Shipping invoices. I forced my mind away from that
hot little space between her legs. Smiling, I looked back at her.

“You’re right.”

She leaned down and picked up her purse, giving me a flash of
those perfect, round tits where they strained against her bra. Then she rose on
unsteady legs and unzipped the purse. She pulled out a folded stack of papers
and a photograph, handing them out to me with trembling fingers.

“Doug’s cell phone records. And I’ve written down the places
he usually hangs out. Also a few people I’ve heard him talk about. Maybe some
of them will mean something to you.”

I gritted my teeth. “What’s his problem? Drugs? Gambling?”

“I don’t know. Probably both.”

“He’s been stealing from you?”

She nodded. “A little. And I haven’t seen him in four days. He
won’t answer his phone. He’s never
not
checked in with me for that long.
He got angry with me. I said no when he asked me for a loan. It was a
lot
of money he wanted. Ten grand. The police don’t seem to be as concerned as I
am.”

I couldn’t help the smirk that came into my face. “I can’t
imagine they would . . . look . . .”

“I need you,” she said, cutting me off before I could finish.
“I don’t have anyone else who can help me. And I always pay my debts.”

Fuck. There it was. Her offer. Bold and simple. Help her and
she’d let me take my payment any way I wanted.  So it circled right back to
where I started. Did I want it from her bad enough? Was she worth the trouble?

I moved toward her. She trembled but held her ground. Her eyes
traveled up the length of me as I towered over her by almost a foot. I slid my
hand back to the nape of her neck and angled her best for kissing. Again, she
gave me that little gasp and parted her lips, as if I’d trained her to do it. God.
That’s exactly what I wanted from her.

She groaned when I brought my lips down to hers. I pulled away
but kept my forehead pressed against hers. “Are you sure you’re ready for
that?”

Her eyes searched mine as she nodded. “Yes,” she gasped. “Anything,
I’ll do anything. Just help me.” Yeah. She needed my help, but she needed more
than that. The little flash in her eyes betrayed her truth. This wasn’t just
about her brother. I think it shocked her how bad she ended up wanting me when
I put my hands on her.

“Good,” I said as I let her go and took the folded paper from
her hands. “Because I
always
collect.”

Chapter Two

Nicole

Fuck.

I tried to be smooth. Tried to be cool. My fingers shook as I
tried to stab the key into the ignition. The neon Great Wolf logo blinked in my
rearview mirror in time with my hammering pulse. I pressed my forehead against
the steering wheel as my Jeep Wrangler fired to life.

I knew it wouldn’t be easy, walking into that bar, but I
hadn’t expected to remember what Brax felt like all those years ago. Hadn’t
expected him to stir up what had, up until that point, been both the best and
worst nights of my life.

“God damn you, Doug!” I said to no one as I jammed the car
into reverse and pulled out of the bar parking lot. He’d left me no choice. I
hadn’t lied to Brax about any of it. Doug had been in trouble plenty over the
years, but this time was different. I’d seen the bruises and the fear in his
eyes. Doug might be the world’s biggest fuck-up, but I couldn’t give up on him.
Not yet. He was the only family I had left. But I hadn’t planned on responding
like I did to Brax. It was like he’d flipped some switch inside of me. One
touch and I was all quivering, primal need. I couldn’t afford to lose control
like that again.

I made the ten-mile drive back to downtown Lincolnshire
without even really knowing how I got there. After nine o’clock now, the shop
was dark and quiet.

Ridley’s Olde Time Ice Cream & Soda Shop
had been
in my family for over eighty years. My great-something-times grandfather had
started it with his brother. They’d made a go of the place and survived the
Great Depression, WWII and everything in between.
Ridley’s
was a staple
of Lincolnshire. We went in and out of fashion over the years, but never out of
business.

I parked the car in the back and fumbled with my keychain,
letting myself in the back way off the alley. I flipped the wall switch and the
harsh fluorescent bulbs flared to life. I always liked the shop after hours
like this when it was empty. The gleaming black-and-white-checkered floors, the
art deco counters with polished metal trim. We even had three vintage jukeboxes
lined along the wall and a dance floor that no one ever used. But it worked
great for large groups and kids’ birthday parties. 

People came for the atmosphere, but they also came for the
homemade parlor ice cream. Ninety-seven flavors. I’d always asked my grandpa
why we didn’t round it to an even hundred, and he’d say, “That’s the gimmick,
kiddo!” Of course, we never had more than forty flavors ready to go at any
given time. We didn’t have the cooler space or the ingredients. But some of my
best memories as a kid were spent at Grandpa Ridley’s knee coming up with new
flavors like Peanut Butter Hopscotch (my five-year-old brain meant butterscotch
but the name stuck) and Double Cake Brownie.

These days, I was the only Ridley left to run the place. Well,
me and Doug. Twenty years ago, my dad had gotten a sizeable offer from a
corporate chain to sell. He’d said no because he knew it might be Doug’s only
chance to have something of his own. When he told me that, I did exactly what
you’d expect an indignant thirteen-year-old girl to do. I stomped my foot, put
my hands on my hips, and told him I could run the business just as well or
better than Doug. I think I also called him sexist.

My father had smiled, probably laughed a little, and told me
something that stuck with me. “Nicole, Doug’s going to need it more than you
will. You’re stronger than he is. Smarter. When the time comes, you’re going to
get the hell out of Lincolnshire and never look back. They’re going to need you
to run the country or Wall Street. I’m going to need Doug to run
Ridley’s
.”

He also threatened to ground me until Y2K if I ever repeated
his speech to Doug.

Well, things never quite work out how you think they will. I
felt a cold pit in my stomach as I ran my hand along the row of family pictures
we kept on the back wall near the cash register. Great-something Grandpa Ridley
and Great Uncle Joe with a shovel in their hands and beaming smiles as they
broke ground on the place in 1937. My Grandma and Grandpa Ridley, standing
behind the counter in aprons in the fifties. My one-year-old self perched on my
father’s shoulders as Ronald Reagan made a campaign stop here for his
reelection bid.  My father invented Jelly Bean Sundae just for the occasion.

Of all the people in the pictures on the wall, I was the only
one left. I choked back the anger, tears, and the love that always bubbled up
when I looked at those pictures. Dad was right and horribly wrong. It turned
out he needed me to run
Ridley’s
after all.

I slid onto one of the red leather stools at the counter and
buried my face in my hands. “God dammit, Doug. And fuck you too, Daddy.”

But that was all the wallowing I could afford to do for one
day. I turned the lights back off and headed up the stairs to the apartment I
kept over the shop. I’d have a few hours of peace before I needed to go back
downstairs and get everything ready for the morning shift. We served waffles
and ice cream by seven a.m. That was part of Grandpa Ridley’s expansion back in
the seventies.

I checked my phone for the dozenth time this evening but Doug
hadn’t called. I wondered what I’d do if he did. Would it be relief or dread
this time? It wasn’t just Doug’s number I looked for. I slid my finger across
the screen and held my breath.

Brax.

I sank to the couch and rested my head on the back of the
cushion. Brax’s hands. Broad and strong as he spanned my waist with them and lifted
me onto the back of his bike. I hadn’t been brave enough to take a ride with
him that night and always wondered what would have happened if I had. He was
leather and sin and wild heat. He awakened a fire in me that night under the
bleachers that I’d spent the last fifteen years trying to douse. It was there
though, a tiny kindling just under the surface. A reminder of how terribly
wrong everything can go if I ever got reckless like that again. And yet here I
was, offering myself to him all over again.

God. He’d felt so good. He touched me in all the right places.
He was strong and dangerous. Skilled and raw all at once. Just the fevered
memory of his lips against my most sensitive flesh still kept me awake some
nights, groaning his name in the darkness.

But I knew what he was. He’d been more honest with me that
night than any man I’d been with before or since. It’s the reason I went to him
all those years ago. For revenge. To prove something to myself. I wanted to
break free from everyone’s expectations of me just for one lust-filled, wild,
incredible moment. I’d gotten more than I bargained for that night.

Now
though, could I do it again? We weren’t teenagers
anymore and things like that came with a price. And I’d just offered myself to
a man I knew was dangerous. A killer, if I believed some of the rumors I’d
heard. Did the ends justify my means?

“Goddammit, Doug,” I whispered as a sob tore from my throat.

It had taken everything in me to stop Brax tonight. I wanted
him, just enough to be dangerous. Except now, I couldn’t afford any mistakes. I
could trace the crumbling of everything I believed about myself and the people
I counted on to that one, reckless night I spent with Brax. Maybe the price I’d
offered to pay him was way too high.

I curled up on the couch and felt the first heavy weight of
sleep settle over my shoulders. I could call Brax tomorrow and tell him the
deal was off. I’d come to my senses and wanted to do what the cops told me I
should. Wait. Stay out of it. Let Doug reach out when he was ready.

No sooner had I thought it when my phone vibrated on the coffee
table in front of me and skittered toward me. My heart jumped into my throat as
I picked it up. Then it sank to my feet as I saw the caller ID.

“Doug?” I sat up. The air went from my lungs. “Doug, where are
you? Are you all right?”

“Nic? Thank God. Nic? Can you hear me?” His voice sounded a
million miles away and desperate. I think I aged a decade in that span of a few
seconds and Doug got a decade younger. He sounded like he did when he was
little.

“I can hear you. Where are you? Are you okay?”

I heard street sounds behind him. A car horn honking. “Nic. I
need your help. It’s bad this time. It’s not my fault.”

When I spoke again, my voice went flat. “How much, Doug? What
is it this time?”

“Fifteen grand, Nic. Please. And you can’t say no. I swear to
God I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Will you just come home? Or tell me where you are. I’ve been
worried sick.”

“Nicole, they’re going to kill me. Do you understand what I’m
saying?”

Doug choked back a sob and the blood in my veins turned to
ice. I believed him. Something in his voice was different, more desperate. I
clawed at the couch. It felt like the ground might open up beneath my feet and
pull me into a dark, bottomless pit. I took a steadying breath and tried to
remember what the cops told me to do if he called again.

“I’m trying to help you. But I need to know where you are.
Doug, if someone’s trying to hurt you, we can call the police.”

“No! I told you. No police. Just. Please. Can you put the
money in my bank account? If you don’t, I’ll be dead. They’re not messing
around this time. I swear I’ll never ask you for anything like this again. It’s
the last time.”

He’d said that to me so many times before. I sighed and shut
my eyes tight. “Doug, I don’t know.”

He started to cry and the bottom dropped out of my heart.

“Jesus, Doug. Calm down. Please tell me where you are. If
you’re in real trouble, we’ve got to call the police. I don’t care if you get
arrested, Doug. I just want you safe.”

Then Doug yelled something I couldn’t understand. I tried to
get him to slow down, but the line went dead. My heart hammered behind my
ribcage as I screamed his name into the phone even though I knew he was long
gone.

With shaky fingers, I tried to redial Doug’s number, but I got
an automated message that his mailbox was full. Pulling my knees against my
chest, I shivered. It was as if the temperature in the apartment just dropped
twenty degrees.

Doug was in trouble. And he was running out of time.